


Once before

by AmyWilldo



Series: This is not a love story, he lied [1]
Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: BBC, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-08 08:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10383009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyWilldo/pseuds/AmyWilldo
Summary: there's always a back story if you know where to look. This is what happened before and how it all went wrong





	1. In which everyone is too smart for their own good and no one is happy

He can hear her laughing over his side of the room and it’s irritating him more than it should. There’s nothing wrong with the laugh, it’s the right kind of husky, not a squealing pig, not a braying hyena, there’s nothing he can fault with the laugh itself. It’s the audience that’s bothering him. He’s the laugh, the life of the party, the one that can keep them rolling in the aisle, and she’s playing in the deep end and he doesn’t like it. There’s Dave, from sound, good old sandy Dave, who’s been down the pub with him a million night, and he’s defected, for a pair of tits. A pretty spectacular pair, and he’s forced to admit that the skirt she’s pulled out of nowhere for tonight is well worth investigating, but still. It’s not fair, it’s not right, he’s entitled to his faithful audience of Daveness, for surely he’s earnt it. Dave’s not the only fellow casting his eyes over Bea tonight either, and she knows it, too. Leo, station head, arm up the wall, eyes angled the right way down her top, and Pete, producer on Wessex Tonight, the slot they all want, all listening to whatever long shaggy dog she’s spinning tonight. There’s the female audience too, because of course there is, and that’s absolutely not right. It’s criminal, is what it is. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.  
What Benedick actually does is buy everyone a round. It’s a dirty, low tactic because it works, and suddenly they’re his again, and he can finally, finally, tell the story he’s been waiting on all week, the one where he has absolutely, just about finally, verified proof, that the head of the BBC is in fact a time travelling alien who’s hitched a ride in a Tardis. It’s long, it’s convoluted, and it’s hysterically funny in its improbability, and he has them all, he can feel it. He can see Pete mumbling something into Leo’s ear, something good, no doubt, Dave’s wetting himself slapping the table and spilling his drink on his lap, and the blonde from HR is doing the puppy eyes thing, and he’s in like Flynn. And Beatrice is looking, predictably, like she wants to kill him. Way too much intensity with that eyeliner of hers. And all’s fair in love and war, and this is very much a kind of war. There’s only so many slots on the news, and they both want in. It’s a pity, because in a fair fight, Ben has to admit, she’d probably thrash him. Plus, there’s the aforementioned legs. And tits.  
“What a marvellous imagination you have there, Ben. Someone else actually factchecked your last segment, right? Wouldn’t want to accidentally dethrone the Queen again, would you?”  
It was one time. It was one accidental time, and he honestly hadn’t meant to refer to King Charles. “At least I have an imagination. Could come in useful next time you want to pitch a nursing home piece. I mean, talk about snoozeville.”  
Her hands are on her hips. Her chest is heaving. And there’s a pathway that’s opened up between his side of the pub and hers, just ready for her to throw a glass, or a stool, or something. Not that she would. He thinks.  
“Oh, I’m sure you have an imagination. I’m pretty sure you’re well acquainted with it. It gets used pretty frequently, I’d say. That and your right hand.”  
There’s an intake of breath by the other girls. A good natured guffaw by Leo. The warmth of the pub is going to have to explain away his cheeks, because Benedick doesn’t blush.  
“Now look. I’m pretty certain that that sort of talk just won’t do. Not in front of the boss, Bea. I’d hate for that to find its way into your file. That’s the sort of thing that could be the downfall of a promising career, right, Cindy? Sexual harassment and all that?”  
The giggling blonde by his side now is nodding, but Bea’s won this round, and she knows it, because he can’t escalate without it going pearshaped, not in front of Leo, and he can’t win with that sitting out there. What he really wants to say, what he’d confide to the bottom of his pint, is that of course he does. Every other girl in the building but her. And that’d be a lie. Because of course he does.  
She’s tingling, and it’s not the alcohol. It’s a little the alcohol. It’s mostly having shut him down. Friday nights at the pub, this is the way it goes. It’s over a little sooner tonight than normal, but he didn’t get here until late. Less time to build. It’s probably a bit wrong that she enjoys taking him down this much. After all, he’s a decent bloke. Mostly. Ignoring the way in which he’s shamelessly talking to Cindy’s breasts at the moment, rather than her face. Cindy isn’t minding, so why should she? There’s no earthly reason why she should. She tips her tequila shot back, head back so it burns down quicker. Head spins, and she wipes her mouth on the back of her hand, lips buzzing. Looks up, and he’s sneering at her. Or smirking. Or something. She forces her mouth to smirk back, all fake triumph, and he holds her eyes for a moment. Closes them to tip back his ounce of poison, blinking wide awake at her, like it’s her chest he’s ogling, not Cindy’s. Holds it for a moment, again, and then deliberately turns back to the blonde.  
There’s bile at the back of her throat, but she keeps it at bay. At least until she makes it home. Alone.


	2. Now is the winter of our discontent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little older but not a great deal wiser, it's Christmas

Leo's party is fancy dress. They’ve been interns for a year, covering interest pieces, faces to camera, a byline, but no one’s won yet. Leo’s going to know by June, he’s said. She’s dressed as Deanna Troi, and it’s not her fault the costume’s a little too tight around the bust. The wonderbra’s all hers, though. If there’s any advantage to be won with Leo, and Pete, and the powers that be that can be won by flaunting her camera ready features, then she’s going to win it. The studio’s sent her for some more test shots, and she looks ready. She thinks she looks ready. It’s a little odd to be playing up to Leo, who she’s known since she was a kid, who’s the go to for ‘adult’ conversation along the lines of how exactly you open a bank account, take out a lease, all those things a parent should tell you, but can’t if they’re dead, in the case of mum, or in Australia with a second family and don’t care anymore, in the case of dad. It’s more than a little odd, but it’s what’s necessary to get ahead, and all Beatrice has to get ahead is herself. So, tight costumes, and playing up to Leo is what’s necessary. Helping Hero organise the house is more fun than necessary.  
It feels like playing house, is what Hero says, as they set out flowers, and direct the traffic of alcohol supplies, and canapes. She’s seventeen, going on twenty one, and perky, and recently blonde, the product of the best private school that Leo’s money could buy, and all the acting out issues that a mother dying when you’re sixteen, rather than twenty odd, will get you. And as of the end of this school year, will be once again Daddy’s little problem. Beatrice thinks she’s fun. A laugh. The little sister she always wanted and never had. She’s already taken Hero out on the town, once. Fake IDs and all, but Hero had them already, and had all the tricks down already, how to get a chap to buy you a drink, how to watch said drink for roofies, the importance of going to the loos in pairs, to debrief on the talent, and plan the next move, and she’s better than Beatrice at them, and Beatrice feels at the end of the nights out, as she helps Hero slip back into the upstairs bedroom, up the drainpipe and loose brick, like she’s an old maid being taken out as a courtesy, rather than the one who’s actually legal, and doing the little one a favour. Hero’s let slip, because she’s the type who can’t hold anything in, that Daddy’s going to let her step in as weathergirl. Beatrice wonders, but doesn’t say anything, whether the current blonde eye candy’s been told. Leo changes them every year, 1 July. Should work out nicely.  
There’s a pool, but it’s covered over, sprinkled with snow. It’s not snowed properly yet, just little teases, that have melted into grey sludge on the streets, and they’re inside looking out. Which means that she’s in prime position to see Benedick stumble up the drive, literally trip over his own feet, and fall flat on his face. There’s a sword, or a lightsabre sticking up, at his side, and he’s in brown robes of some sort. He’s either a pirate or a Jedi, and she can’t tell which is funnier, and she’s dying to get him inside so she can start the mocking, until he pushes up, and she sees the blood, and it’s not so funny any more. It’s around the mouth area, and he puts his hand up to it, and looks at it, puzzled, like he’s never seen blood before, and then up at the window. It’s too late to do the kind thing, and duck away, pretend he’s had no audience for his calamity, so she does the next best thing. Holds up some tissues and beckons him in.  
He's at the side entrance, and still bleeding.  
“Here,” she says, and hands them over. “I can get some frozen peas, I’m sure.”  
He holds up a ball of sludge. “Probably more sanitary than this.”  
“Honestly, you’re hopeless.” The blood’s soaked through. “Press harder.”  
He does. “I’m waiting, Bea, for the mocking.”  
“Are any teeth loose, do you think? Are we talking braces and retainers, or will there be dentures in your future, just a little early? Might put a damper on your spot at the newsdesk, if you end up spraying the camera.”  
“And there we are. I was getting worried.”  
“I do, contrary to the false rumours you like to spread, have a heart. I’m just giving you a rest break so you can get out there and do what you like to call socialising and I can have a clear conscience that you don’t need medical attention.”  
He removes the tissue. Looks at it, and wrinkles his nose.  
“How do I look?”  
“As repulsive as ever, but you’ve stopped bleeding, if that’s what you mean. I’d refrain from liplocking for the night, though.”  
“How can I deny the ladies of South West TV for that long? I think you’re just trying to keep me off the market. Ulterior motives, Bea, ulterior motives.”  
She snorts. “Ben, you’ve just fallen ass over tea kettle. Believe me, kissing you is the last thing on my mind.”  
“If you say so, darlin’, if you say so.” He throws the tissue in the waste bin. “But thanks. My mouth and I appreciate it.”  
He blows her a kiss, and walks away. She watches him leave, not for the first time admiring the view.  
Adjusts the Wonderbra, puts on a game face, and it’s show time. That night, it’s like she’s patrolling, or he is, never in the same place at the same time, and when she sees him, he’s rubbing his lip, where it’s split. Or wincing, as he takes a drink. It’s useful to remember he’s human too. Capable of being hurt. It’s not useful to think that she wants to fix it. Kiss it better.


	3. Glorious summer, or something approximating it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Beatrice calls for a truce

It’s the summer party and there’s no reason to fight any more, both of them on air for six months, except there is. There’s always a reason to fight. More airtime, more of the important stories, more of everything. Which is stupid. Both of them know it’s stupid. It would be a good idea to stop, is what Pete says to each of them, separately, at opposite ends of Leo’s swimming pool.  
There’s no costumes this time, other than bathing costumes. Hero, now fully fledged weather girling is in a little bitty yellow polka dot bikini that makes her father press bathrobes on her when she emerges from the water, which somehow makes her look more undressed than when she’s only in said little tiny teeny bikini. Benedick is holding court in the spa, in the bubbles and the steam, flirting outrageously with Margaret, Cindy, all the girls he can manage to entice into his neighbourhood. She can see Pete chuck him on the shoulder, and he looks her way, and rolls his eyes. Par for the course.  
She’s down the other end of the pool, kicking her feet in the cool, sipping a glass of something sparkling, and being patient with old men complimenting her in very little clothing, resisting the urge to make unflattering comparisons to salamis, and prunes, and very nearly failing. There’s no equivalent bevy of young men for her, no.  
She watches Pete, crisp in white linen, he who does not swim, make his way down to her, clearly a man with a mission. Pete, offering a hand up, gives her the excuse she needs to regain her sanity, make her escape. Ties her sarong around her waist, Hero having warned them all that it may turn chilly, and therefore to bring clothes for all eventualities, each syllable rolling lovingly off her tongue. Bleugh. At least her legs are safe.  
He gives her a minute to towel down, before launching in. It’s delivered in the same, no nonsense tones that have got her out of sticky cross overs, introductions gone wrong, VR that hasn’t rolled, the trust me and I’ll show you the way voice, and she’s primed, now, six months in, to take it as a gospel.  
“Beatrice. No more tricks on Ben. He’s more skittish than a colt in a fresh pasture. I can’t have him grimace down the camera every night because you’ve told him there’s something wrong at the last minute. You’re affecting the show. Do you understand me?” The fact that he’s holding a margarita with a cocktail umbrella does nothing to take away from the seriousness of his tone.  
“Fine. He’s a spoilt child who has to be pandered to constantly, and I deeply resent the implication that this is all me, but fine. For the show. I will try very hard to tell him there’s things wrong before the last minute. If you can promise me that I’m going to get more freedom to choose what’s worthy of screen time. That’s what I’m really interested in. And you know it.”  
Pete sighs. Takes a sip of the margarita, mouth puckering, eye neatly avoiding stabbing with the umbrella. “What I know is that I have two months left on contract, and then I’m moving on. That chap down at the white table, he’s offered me a fresh one at the Beeb in London, and I’m off to the big smoke. So if you want to keep the desk at Wessex Tonight without me to plead your case, you’d best make sure there’s a desk left to hold onto. And you know that.”  
She does. The studio’s changed from amused tittering at her snipes at Ben, and his feeble attempts to bat the ball back, to grumbles and muttering, and can we just get on, and there’s sides taken, and that’s not going to end well, and beside, look at him, lord of misrule down there with his curls, and his harem. Even though she’s winning the war, just by virtue of her being female, she’s losing the battle. She ties the sarong a bit tighter. Throws her shoulders back. This has to end.  
It’s a longer walk down the length of the pool than she’d like, than she remembers from all the others. Hero’s in the spa, in with all the girls, but at least not on Benedick’s knee, and Leo hasn’t noticed yet, so all’s well that hasn’t begun in this instance, at least.  
“Oh, mistress Beatrice’s decided to join us, has she?” pipes in Margaret.  
She’d prefer to have this conversation alone. With more clothes on. Preferably with armour.  
“Well observed, Meg,” says Beatrice, who knows that Margaret doesn’t like abbreviations of her name anymore than Beatrice herself. “But no. I’ve come to ask Ben to dance.”  
His head turns, finally. “To dance?”  
“Yes, Ben, to dance. I presume you know how? Two feet on the ground and a bit of shuffle. This is an olive branch I’m offering here. Limited time offer.”  
He looks down the pool, at Pete. Cool, crisp, clean white Pete, who’s watching them both, making encouraging hand signals of the type he usually uses to have them coax a couple more covering seconds of banter when the story’s run short.  
Places two hands on the edge of the spa and levers himself up.  
There’s an appreciative murmur from the ladies, and apparently the jogging’s working. Beatrice is staunchly looking at his face. Although when he sluices the water off by hand, she watches that, too.  
“So, d’you want me with clothes on or as is?” The audience titters again. He’s wearing boardshorts, not his first round at this particular rodeo, having embarrassed himself in speedos the year previously, when it didn’t matter.  
“As is, clothes, whatever. The point is that we need to be seen to be getting on. So we should, perhaps, get on?” She’s offering him her hand. An olive branch. A platform on which to be seen as partners. It’s politic to accept.  
She’s wearing more clothes, he notes, as they shuffle on the spot in an acceptable version of dancing, than the girls in the water, but somehow feels more naked. Of course, he wasn’t touching them, not more than accidentally on purpose legs underwater, but here touching is required. And she has a nice waist. And nice shoulders. And wears the hell out of a one piece.  
“Why are we here, Bea,” he says casually, looking over her shoulder back at the throng in the spa. “Is it because you’ve finally conceded that I’m the better man? The better newsreader? Or is it just the way I look in these?”  
“We’re here, because Pete read me the riot act. And you, I’m guessing. We’re here because we need to get along. Or at least get along enough to get by as friendly on air. We’re here so that Leo can see us doing it. Smile, if you can manage it, when we next turn. There’s a BBC rep here, the chap with Pete at the white table. Ideally, I’d like not to look like a complete pair of juveniles in front of him. Any of those reasons work for you?”  
The music ends. He doesn’t let go. His thumb is tracing her rib.  
“All of those reasons. Okay. I’ll call truce if you will. And if we’re going to do this, we should do it properly. I’d like to take you out to dinner. Say next Friday, at the Claremount at 7pm?”  
She whistles. “Truces don’t come cheap, do they? Can’t next Friday. Let’s say the Friday after.”  
He lets go. “You know, I’ve always said you’re a very attractive woman. When you’re not being a complete, you know, cow. My treat.”  
She shakes her head at him. “Truce, Ben. Truce.”  
He nods. “Friday after.” He ambles in the direction of the white table.  
She can still feel where his hands were. Strips off the sarong and dives. Tries to avoid thinking about the way in which the water sluiced down his chest, and fails. Surfaces, and he’s gone.


	4. London, the promised land, and beyond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when everything you always wanted isn't what you wanted

Eighteen months in.   
He’s tired, is what he knows. And he knows now what he didn’t before, that this isn’t him. There’s no time to blink, no time to think about stories, to get his bearing, it’s constant, the onslaught, and no story’s unimportant. Everything has to be polished, has to be vetted, has to be right. He’d like to say that he can point out the difference between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on a map, but the people he’s working with can not only spell them, they speak the dialects. Fluently. Crack jokes in them.  
The one time that he went to Lebanon, as part of a crew reporting on a conflict that he was sure he’d learnt about at school, he was confused the entire time. Confused, and panicked, and never quite in the right place. The flack jacket straps never quite buckled right, the sound boom in the wrong car, the camera out of power at the critical time, and always, as the new kid on the block, even two years in, it’s his fault. He’s a voice on the ground, sure, but not a very competent one, and not one with much air time at that. The people, if he’d been able to meet them, he’s sure would have been wonderful.   
He's relieved, frankly, to be back in London. Terra firma. Land of the chip butty and many fewer people with guns. He goes on a colossal bender that weekend. Much alcohol. Much flirting and one bathroom stall shag that he’s not particularly proud of, but safe sex was safe sex, and the lass in question patted him on the arse and sent him on his way, so no harm, no foul.   
At work the next week, there’s knowing looks, meaning someone told the station head about him puking out the side of the jeep, meaning that his desk is covered in confetti, and shredded paper, and it takes more effort than he wants to think about to keep the smile on his face.   
The stories start trailing off, after that. It’s no longer quite such a thrill to be assigned the live cross with the Mayor of London, when you know that’s the job the current anchor had had three years prior, before he’d been sent on his call of duty. It’s a step down. It’s a demotion. Ben tries to make it his own. Master of the upbeat, the quirky WTF stories, the ones that you play after the slot’s been too sombre, the stories he’d have mocked back home, become his domain. He’s the clown jester, because if you’re poking fun at yourself, no one else can quite land a hit.   
Wessex Tonight, on his nights off, becomes a thing. It’s a blanket of normal. Keith is the old hand, showed him the ropes, and where to hide a flask if you need one, and he’s firm, and authoritative, provided you don’t know him personally, and Ben likes to pretend that he doesn’t. He’s a voice that’s perfect for aping, and for providing a direction to oppose, when Keith goes sombre, Ben goes twinkly in his next story, make people happy, why not? There’s plenty of sadness in the world. He’d like there not to be. And there’s Hero, and she’s pushing the envelope for the wide eyed ingenue, and she’d best be moving up or out, even if her dad’s the station head. Someone should tell her that. And Claude, who Ben recognises from local sports. A boofhead, but a harmless one, who seems genuinely surprised by everything, from falconry to football. Someone should take that lad under his wing. If he’d been there, he would have. But he’s not. He tries to forget that. It’s like Skyping his family, if he had one.   
Then there’s Bea, the opposite of what he remembers. No angles showing now, all warmth and friendly brown eyes, she’s perfected the wide smile, the knowing look to draw the audience in, all part of the story, all part of her charm. She wouldn’t have been phased. She wouldn’t have thrown up. She’d have got out of the jeep, and found someone to interview, local colour, the human face to conflict, all that. And then she’d probably have found a bar. All things he’d failed to do. He’d done what was asked of him, true, but he hadn’t managed to do any more. Twenty eight and washed up, him, and look at her. Look.


	5. Is Signor Mountanto returned from the wars, or no?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's not sure that she's won, after all.

Two years in  
Black and blue, she tells them. No one listens. Assumes she’s joking, although she’s not. Keith’s not a laugh at the best of times, and under lights as her co host, rather than Ben, he’s unstoppable, hands where he can manage them, under the guise of an avuncular pat. Avuncular pig. She can’t stop smiling, it’s what she’s paid for, her charm, so she’d best keep it going. This is her newsdesk, couch, whatever, and she’s damned if that lech is going to slime her out of it.   
At home, safe on her own supportive sofa where there are no slimy hands to importune, she eats take out, or cheese sandwiches and salad, and tries not to make odious comparisons. Ben’s probably living it up in London, espresso martinis and cocktail waitresses every night, a crew, no, a cohort of young men roaming the town after they deliver their segments. She’s made a habit of accidentally happening to stumble across the Beeb news night when she’s eating, and he looks tired, when he’s on. The stories aren’t great, but she expects that’s London for you, more competition, and still only the same amount of airtime. Then one night, he’s gone. Next week, she checks back in, and still no Ben. It’s a little odd. There’s a Beeb rep out doing the normal rounds, and at the daily rundown, she slips it in, casually, a question that anyone might have asked, except that it’s her, and it’s him. So there’s a bit of chaffing, why pick on the poor fellow now when he’s not here to defend himself, Beatrice?   
Oh, Benedick, the rep says. I remember him now. Yes, he moved on. But despite pressing, the Beeb flunky can’t remember where.  
It’s a puzzle. She feels bad for not knowing. It’s a little tickle at the back of her head, like not remembering exactly where you put your car keys.   
Ten months later, she has the answer, during a bout of bad insomnia. He’s found himself a home amongst the antiques, over on BBC One. It’s a job, she supposes, and he’ll probably last less than a year. Not a job she would have expected. More suited to Keith, perhaps. She’d always pictured him, if she’d had to picture him, doing the same sort of thing as she does. Stories, and interviews, and a bit of the in depth, but probably less then her, and not as well as her, because he does tend to go on a bit, needs a bit of the edit suite. This is not him.   
Despite all that, she finds herself accidentally awake, during the wee hours, occasionally, and it doesn’t hurt to watch. It’s a little bit of the old, at least I’m doing better than someone, sometimes. Other times, it’s just soothing, for she’s prepared to admit he does have a calming voice. Someone, somewhere along the line, has taught him about some types of antiques, and he has enough of the less camera ready specialists on set to fill in the rest. He’s reined in his eyebrows, at least when he’s interviewing the folk who bring in their odd and sods for appraisal, so that no one looks like they think he’s poking fun. She thinks she could.   
She’s not sure about the beard. Leo always discouraged it at Wessex Tonight, and he hadn’t had it at the Beeb proper. It frames his mouth more than she likes, she doesn’t want to be thinking about his mouth at all. She’s deleted the text, in any case. Deleted him as a contact. He’s gone for good, and good riddance. London can have him.


	6. Once before: the dreams, and the things left unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the mind plays tricks

Chapter 1:  
He kisses Cindy behind the pub, in the laneway. There’s broken glass on the ground, and graffiti on the walls, meat is murder and bring back Thatcher, and her tongue’s thick in his mouth, awkward, and wrong and he gives it up as a bad job. She pats him on the cheek, see you at the office, and toddles off with the rest of them to find a cab.   
The night air’s bracing. It’s not that far to his flat, and the graffiti ebbs away the further he is from the Tube. It’s pleasant, even.   
She would’ve thrown the glass, if they’d been in some sort of Coronation Street drama, and then gone for him in a big way. Hair pulling, and the like. Big pub brawl, and they’d have all been out on the street. The smart thing, he begrudgingly acknowledges to himself, was to fight with words. She was quicker than him, too. If he’d had a second chance, he’d have asked her why it was she was thinking of him tossing off. Midnight musings, was it?  
Was she thinking of him?   
The mail’s unimportant, bills and advertising circulars. The bills go on the desk, the ads in the circular filing cabinet. There’s a water drunk, and teeth brushed, and clothes stripped off, and he’s lying in bed, and he’s angry again. Friday night, night out with the crew, chance to show off, and of course, of course his best performance, his shaggiest of dog stories, even that couldn’t be his, no, she had to turn it into her warm up. Spotlight had to be hers, couldn’t even acknowledge his story with a laugh.   
He’s hard and he doesn’t want to be. Shouldn’t be, thinking of her. Her and her short skirt, flaring out mid thigh, begging to be pushed up, hands underneath. Shouldn’t be thinking about what it’d be like to crowd in on her like Leo’d been doing, arm up against the wall, Beatrice underneath, and that top slipping off her shoulders. Shouldn’t be wondering about her, and the wall in that back alley, and whether she’d be loud, or if she’d just bite that bottom lip at him, and fuck.   
He’ll change the sheets tomorrow. This is the last time, he promises himself. He hates her. 

Chapter 2:  
If he’d not looked up and seen her, and the ground not been quite so slick, it wouldn’t have happened, is what he tells himself, as he circulates, trying not to lick at his lip, where it’s split. Not her fault, exactly, but it wouldn’t have happened without her. Her and that tight deep cut top.   
He stands in groups, and nods, as there’s inane chit chat, as there always is at these parties, where everyone knows each other, and sees each other if not every day, then every second or third. There’s nothing new to be said, and anything new is seized upon. Item 1, when he smiles, and it cracks, he has to explain the blood to the new group, and that gets old. Item 2, the gossip’s all about whether Hero will be brought on as the new weather girl. Of course she will: she’s Leo’s daughter, she’s pretty, she’s blonde, and she can read a cue card, there’s no guessing about it. She’s buzzing about the party like a little blonde bee, charming everyone, and he thinks about telling her she doesn’t have to, that the fix is in, and the job’s going to be hers. Doesn’t.   
Deanne Troi – Beatrice is watching him, and he’d quite like that to stop. She’s making it obvious too, watching to see if he’s going to trip over himself again, presumably. If they were friends, he’d expect it. Welcome it, even. He’d make GQ poses by the bar, sit legs akimbo on the awful sofa, pretend to ostentatiously check his watch. Blow her kisses. He winces at the thought, and his lip cracks again, and he tastes blood.   
And she sees that too. The smile, half mocking, half not, triggers a Pavlovian response, and it’s a good thing he’s wearing Jedi robes, loose and concealing, and fuck it all, he’s leaving. A swoop of his Jedi robes, and he’s gone.   
The taxi driver snorts on pick up, tells him not to burn the seat with the lightsaber, and a couple of bob later, he’s home, with his own whiskey, and his own flat, small and rented though it is, and she can’t watch him anymore.   
He can taste his own blood, just, when he sips on that side, and it stings. There’s got to be more to life than this, the cheap whiskey and running from Beatrice, from Deanna Troi’s knowing eyes.   
In bed, he can’t settle, the whiskey’s in his head, and the bed’s too hot and too cold at the same time. When he does sleep, he dreams. Deanna’s there too, and explaining earnestly that he needs to demonstrate his technique for her, for the purpose of building a psychological profile, and he’s suddenly unclothed, and he’s demonstrating, oh god is he demonstrating, and he can’t tell whether she’s mocking him, or in earnest, with quirked eyebrows, and a sly smile as he demonstrates his technique all over Starfleet’s sick bay, and tells him he’s done well.  
Dreams don’t count, he tells himself in the morning when he changes his sheets. Again.

Chapter 3:  
She showers when she’s home. She doesn’t want to be naked anywhere near any of her coworkers. Or any of the hoi polloi, hobnobbing with the newsies in their swimsuits and hoping for more. The shower’s fitful on the hot and spurts cold intermittently, shocking and cooling in turns, and she hits the sheets unsure whether she’s running a fever.  
7pm Friday. The Claremount. She doesn’t have a dress. Not one that’s appropriate for a Friday night dinner at The Claremount. She has dresses for Friday night out with the girls at the club, and dresses for Friday afternoon live cross to Town Hall, and Friday night at home with a curry takeout and the telly, but she doesn’t have a dress that’s appropriate for this.   
It needs to be the dress equivalent of the one piece. The truce needs to be shown, she can’t turn up in a nun’s outfit, and she can’t turn up in something that’s obviously date material. Or can she? It’s Friday night at The Claremount, after all. It’s highly visible. Their presence, together, is sure to be noted. Someone from the gossip column’ll find out. Does he mean it to be found out? Does he mean it to be seen as a date? Being seen to be get along doesn’t quite rate The Claremount, it rates a drink in the pub, a meal in the local. The Claremount is statement material. Possibly.  
It’s been a while between dates. Since the first year of the internship, actually, where she’d let herself be taken out, seduced for a while, by a musician, who had played the guitar for her, with lots of lovely songs, and deep and meaningful looks, and she’d laughed at the wrong spot one too many times, and he’d said that he felt they were in very different places, and she’d said no hard feelings. It’s been a while.  
There is one dress that she’s seen, idly mused upon. It’s velvety green, with a low cut vee, shoestring straps, dropping close to the floor. She’d counteract his hair, at least. It’s probably still in the shop, she’ll see in the morning.   
The Claremount, 7pm on a Friday. She’d not thought when she said yes. Perhaps she should have. Ben doesn’t date, she’s heard through the gossip mills. Which is not to say that he doesn’t dabble, but it’s generally outside the office, as such, which she’s also heard through the office grapevine, the disappointed musings of her coworkers notwithstanding. She doesn’t take part in the speculation. No matter how she despises him, detests him on a deep and personal level, she wouldn’t want him to be discussing her charms, or the lack thereof, with the office, so she feels she owes it to herself not to be a hypocrite.   
Lying in bed, though, she knows she’s lying, and the worst of hypocrites, because she wants to be the exception. She can still feel his thumb, tracing her rib, and wishes he’d trace further up, his chest hair almost touching her skin, and wishes it would, can almost feel him, dripping wet, waiting for permission in the way the real Benedick never would, and she’d grant it. A one time thing, she’d say. An amnesty, for the night, and she refuses to think about after. Consequences have no place in fantasies, and in hers, Benedick’s lost his trunks, and is pulling her swimsuit down, off, stripping her bare, letting her win, and she’s definitely winning, and the smile on his face, when she looks down tells her that he is too.   
Afterwards, she tells herself, carefully, that it is not going to happen. Ever. She’ll make her bed and lie in it alone. Probably.

Chapter 4:  
He’s dreaming again, he hasn’t for a while, not since he left Wessex, taking the job offer of a lifetime and hopping trains to London. He doesn’t dream of London, or Lebanon, or anywhere else beginning with L, he’s in the country lying in a grassy field, or sitting in the judges tent tasting jam, or picking apples fresh from the tree, wiping them on his trousers and taking a bite, tangy and tart. He can’t hear cars, or people shouting from the pub, there’s no phone vibrating in his pocket, he’s simply there.   
He takes a mini break and catches the train down to Bath, perambulating without any fixed direction, resting his eyes on the green downs, not thinking of anything in particular. Scones in the local tea room, which proudly boasts its age, its survival from the sixteenth century, like that’s anything to be proud of when down the road is a stone circle boasting its age in the thousands rather than hundreds. The guesthouse with decanters as lights, a nice touch, Toby jugs on the mantelpiece. It’s the little details he’s missed. The ability to note the little details, that he’s not had time for. It’s been a trade off, and it’s not, he finally thinks, worth it. He’s not someone who’s going to live or die by whether they become news anchor. He derives pleasure from other things. It’s good, he thinks, to have realized this. Twenty eight’s not too old to be still figuring yourself out. In fact, it’s early. He’s just having his midlife crisis a little prematurely, is all.  
Friday night in Bath is not a thing, or at least it’s not a thing according to the manager of his guesthouse, not a thing that a gentleman from London would be interested in. Benedick takes his post dinner drink to the tv lounge, where the Wessex Tonight roundup is on, and an elderly actual gentleman hushes him, as Beatrice goes over the highlights of the Dorchester Cheese festival. A local producer has won in a subcategory of hard cheeses.   
She looks more relaxed, more at ease in front of the camera, until she turns to Keith. Keith has visible red veins in his nose, and grey bags under his eyes, and she’s edging away on the sofa when she turns to talk to him. It’s only something you’d notice if you’d ever sat next to her, under those lights, in that situation. It’s awkward to watch now.   
At least she has the sofa, he reminds himself. She’s lasted, kept the home fires burning, even if she looks like she wants to burn Keith with them. Perhaps he’s made the wrong decision, in leaving. He’d had time, after all, back in the day, to explore his other interests, life outside the newsroom. He’d not been a failure in anyone’s eyes back then. It could be a whole hail the conquering hero moment, for all they know. For all she knows.   
He wants to be home, and he doesn’t know where or what that is, but Wessex Tonight looks like a start. He thumbs out a text to Pete, who’d got him the out in the first place, and hopes Pete can find him an in back. Then puts the phone away, under the tut-tuts of the elderly gentleman, who mutters something about people today showing no respect, none.   
There’s an item about a memorial service, where Keith looks like he’s falling asleep, until there’s a jab in his ribs by Beatrice, and he jolts upright, and the elderly gentleman tut-tuts again. Hero’s forecast for the weekend is clement, and she only partly trips over the word, beaming at everyone as she does so. It’s miles away from London, but the elderly gentleman looks happy, so Leo certainly is pleasing his audience, which is what counts. After the final credits roll, and the studio falls dark, he can distinctly see Beatrice tearing strips off Keith, and he’s only partly glad it’s not him.  
The bed is lumpier than the one in London, but the ceiling’s more interesting, all sorts of curlicues, and ceiling roses, and pressed metal, and he’s revisiting his memories of antiques as he falls asleep, trying to remember what he’d had as second nature before he took the internship. In his dream, he’s in her, on the couch, no one there but the two of them, gentle undulations, and it doesn’t end and he doesn’t want it to, and he hates that he knows in the dream that he’s home. 

Chapter 5:  
London can have him, definitely.   
The dress is still in the cupboard, unworn. There’s been no occasion, no one she’s wanted to wear it for, and looking at it feels like sour grapes on the tongue. She’d even, in the end, bought matching green underwear, which she does in fact wear. They don’t belong to him, the missed opportunity, after all. She only wears them on the weekend, where there’s no Keith.   
On the weekends, she makes lists. She likes lists, they give her the illusion of control, that she can actually make decisions about the future, that change the future. It feels endless, the future and the present is safe at hand, a known quantity that she can deal with, if not one that’s very satisfying. The lists are futures that she’s never going to achieve, she knows, but they are satisfying in the moment she makes them.   
If Benedick can jump ship, not once, but twice, then she can do what she likes, too. Surely.   
What she’d like to do, in her heart of hearts, is be completely independent of the station. To set her sail, fully funded of course, by some truly philanthropic hands off investor, and investigate whatever she thinks needs a spotlight. She has a halo of publicity for the moment, which will fade, she knows, but eyeballs are eyeballs, and she would have at least one jump at the brass ring, if she could bring herself to make it. If she fails, she’ll have to find something else to do. An office manager, perhaps. A print journo, if she can bring herself to climb that ladder.   
Sometimes, at the rundown meeting, she looks around the circle and thinks about what they’d do if she left. It comes down to Hero, and it comes down to Leo, not in that order.   
Leo would find someone easy enough, it’s true, to replace her. But he needs her to balance out the newsroom, she knows. It’d be a worse show without her, and the show’s her baby, in a way. She doesn’t want it to be worse without her.   
Hero still needs her, Beatrice feels. She’s so tough, so brassy when she wants to be, and so sweet and naïve still. She may know about watching out for unattended drinks, but she doesn’t know that she’s an inbuilt expiry date, and she’s going to need to switch gears if she wants to stay on. That’ll be a journey. How could she leave Hero with no guide?  
There’s a pro and a con list, and all of the pros are outweighed, for the moment, by those two cons.  
At 4am, the cons don’t matter. There’s Benedick, smirking at her, holding up a meaningless bit of antiquery, and boasting his escape. At 4am, the beard tickles at her inner thighs, and he’s looking up at her between her legs, and his eyes are all challenge, daring her to be braver.

**Author's Note:**

> BBC version, where Beatrice is a news anchor, and Claude is as ineffectual a sports commentator as he was a soldier.


End file.
